Awakening

by Stevie Davies

  But human sin is nothing, surely, compared with the carnage the Creator has unleashed on the Creation. The secret voice of heresy persists inside her head. I’m becoming Anna, Beatrice thinks. Don’t tell her, she’ll gloat. And while it’s all inside my head, it may perhaps count as temptation rather than as sin. God condemned and cursed Eve and Adam and every generation of their children: ‘You’ve eaten forbidden fruit; get out of my garden; go and rot. The land you till will be full of thorns. Your offspring will be born in sorrow. And all creatures will fall with you.’ Would I, a human mother, have punished my children’s small fault of curiosity with a world of pain and death? And teased them by appearing in a burning bush or intervening in a whale’s stomach? And now, to cap it all, the Creator may be preparing to annihilate me for thinking this thought.

  ‘Will you come out for a walk with me?’ asks her sister. Beatrice stands up and allows a cloak to be spread over her shoulders. ‘You’re so pale. The trees are glorious. Come and see.’

  The chestnut has turned ginger and copper and the earth around it is stained with the same rustling colours. Conkers are glossy on the lawn. Over towards Fighelbourn the woods redden.

  ‘Mrs Kyffin has written to say she’ll visit tomorrow, dear. It will be good to see her.’

  ‘Will it?’

  ‘Her sister will bring her to visit Charlie and they’ll come on from his lodgings. She says she has a message for you.’

  *

  ‘Great changes are taking place,’ says Mrs Kyffin, setting down her teacup as Mrs Elias hands round scones. ‘Did you bake them yourself, Loveday? They are an interesting shape – rustic. Ellen will enjoy one, I’m sure.’ Ellen shakes her head, before accepting one with an expression of despair. ‘Undreamt-of changes are afoot in the spirit world. But do not be apprehensive. We have promises.’

  Gone is Antigone’s attitude of perplexed defeat. Her bearing is upright and her figure has filled out; there’s a new serenity in her expression.

  ‘Previously existing relations between men and angels,’ she goes on, ‘appear to be in transition.’

  ‘Mother,’ begs Charlie. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Charles of course is much bound up in his chemistry studies – and various newfangled ideas of a not entirely savoury nature,’ Antigone explains. ‘But he will soon see the error of his ways. His employer is a follower of the monkey studies so popular amongst a certain section of the scientific community. I can see the look on your face, Charlie – well, I’m sure you can agree at least that yours is, in any case, a different field of science to ours. He hasn’t seen what we in Bradford on Avon have seen. In the light of this vision, as my dear pastor says, this world dissolves to mist.’

  A pause. ‘That is a very poetical turn of phrase, Antigone,’ observes Mrs Elias. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Mother and Aunt Sarah have joined a new church. And I am not pursuing monkey studies.’

  Flushed, Charlie tugs at his collar as if choking. Catching Anna’s eye, he gives a small shrug. Anna wonders how much time the filial boy is actually giving to his chemical studies, for she hears that not only does he associate himself with Mr Lee’s evolutionary theories but he has taken to following Mr Prynne around Salisbury, saying not a word when challenged. Prowling after Prynne, Charlie observes his every movement. Whenever Mr Prynne looks round, Charlie Kyffin is there, stock-still, like a child playing ‘Freeze’.

  We’ve all gone mad with grief, Anna thinks. The loss of Luke lodges in her like a swallowed stone. She shares her sister’s desolation. One thing gives her hope: the wall of separation is down between the two of them. For this reason Anna is keeping a new secret. She cannot tell Beatrice that she thinks she herself may be expecting a child. She has said nothing to Will. And, after all, she may be wrong.

  Antigone says, ‘Yes, a new church, though we prefer to think of it as an old church, in the sense of the original, the primitive church – the Magnetic Church of Jesus.’

  When Charlie opens his mouth, his mother raises her hand and passes on swiftly to define the church as a laboratory; revelation as a science. Let the soul be constituted of magnetic fluid. Let Divine influence be the magnet. Let the magnetic influence be passed on, its power drawing others to the chain.

  ‘You of all people know how abject I was. Lost.’ Antigone’s body sags in her chair. ‘All of you here saw me, a broken creature. But now – !’ She sits upright. ‘The healing galvanism passes through me. The wounded soul, through Christ’s magnetic influence, becomes the healer. We are nothing. As female vessels we are less than nothing. He is everything.’

  Ellen squirms. At school she has learned, along with piano, watercolours, use of the abacus and the rudiments of French, the manners acceptable in the polite world. To succeed as a governess when she grows up, she’ll need to observe these scrupulously. Out of petticoats now, the fatherless girl is dressed as a miniature adult. She sits to attention as her corset dictates, shoulders tensely raised, nibbling fragments of dessicated scone.

  Anna dollops raspberry jam onto the side of Ellen’s plate and winks. Too decorous to return the wink, the girl gratefully spreads the jam on the scone and makes better progress.

  The baby’s silence pervades Sarum House.

  Luke was never a crying baby so this hardly marks a radical change. It’s as if they’re all on tenterhooks, waiting for him to awaken. How the silence must ring in the mother’s ears. When Anna cannot attend Beatrice, Will often goes in and sits with his sister-in-law. Taking her hand, he speaks to her of the simple, ordinary things going on in the world outside the room. Through the gap between door and jamb, Anna sees her sister looking at him with burning eyes but whether she’s registering Will’s words is unclear. He says he feels as if Beatrice is always about to say something but gives up at the last minute. Christian’s away in Ireland and Beatrice hardly seems to miss him. His letters are left lying on the table unread.

  ‘Anna, dear, where is your sister?’ asks Mrs Kyffin. ‘I have a message for her.’

  Anna knocks: no answer. She peeps round the door. Beatrice, sitting on her bed, hands in lap, looks up as if drugged: ‘Yes?’

  ‘Antigone is here to see you, dear.’

  ‘Oh, is she? Do I have to see her?’

  ‘Of course you don’t have to, dearest.’

  But Mrs Kyffin is already in the room and occupies a fair amount of its space with her crinoline. The acolytes of the Reverend Mr Rayne seem unexpectedly fashion-conscious. ‘Now, how are you? Do you eat and drink properly? Does she, Anna? Nourishment is of the essence at these times of crisis – as I should know. And what a poor example I set with my whining and drooping. Now, dearest, tell me –’ She takes Beatrice’s hand in both of hers. ‘Are you tempted?’

  ‘Tempted?’

  ‘To despair?’

  Beatrice’s expression as she turns away answers for her. A guilty, sardonic look that says, Do not look into my heart for you will find there a cesspool. I killed my son with my neglect. But God foreknew it and failed to intervene. He may have warned me but, if so, I didn’t receive the telegraph. Faith? Oh yes, I have faith but faith in the divine mercy? Anna reads the stricken look and her heart goes out to Beatrice. She has been somewhere near the bad place where her sister now finds herself – but never in exactly the same abyss. One never is and that’s why no one can reach through to heal another’s grief.

  ‘Despair is a sin,’ says Antigone sternly. ‘It’s the sin against the Holy Spirit. We all know this.’

  ‘Don’t,’ says Anna, registering her sister’s flinch. ‘How is this helpful?’

  ‘Let me explain. After my husband’s passing, I left Salisbury for my sister’s house. I was shown my room. Under the eaves. A perfectly adequate room, formerly a servant’s. But despite all Sarah’s kindness, I found my position in the household demeaning. I looked out of the skylight – nothing to be seen but the leads. The thought came – I’m ashamed to say it – that I should hang myself. I threw myself on the b
ed, howling into the pillow. The door swung open. And what do you think? A kitten came padding through. She has saved my life. I do believe she was sent. And since then we’ve shared nearly every waking and sleeping hour together. Tilly is a tabby with one white paw; her brothers and sisters were all drowned.’

  ‘I’m glad you have some comfort, dear Antigone,’ Beatrice rouses herself to say. ‘Yours is a heavy burden.’

  ‘Ah, but Tilly was only the beginning. The following day I awoke early, dressed and looked round my shrunken world. I am a widow, I thought, looking in the mirror. That’s all I am now. A relict. There came a sense of warmth – of presence. And he was there, at my shoulder. Our eyes met in the mirror. He spoke no words – aloud. I don’t think so. He may have. But what I heard in my own mind was: Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? The words of the risen Christ to Mary. I don’t know how long this went on. But I knew – I know – it was my husband. In person.’

  Ghost or hallucination, Anna thinks, it was a Second Coming of sorts for Mr Kyffin – and no less, after all, than the poor man had promised.

  ‘Is this what you wanted to tell me, Antigone?’ asks Beatrice.

  ‘This was just the beginning, dear. For then, you see, my sister introduced me to Mr Rayne, our dear pastor. Have either of you attended a séance? No, dears, of course not – your Papa would never have approved and you may well look sceptical – there are so many charlatans about to exploit the credulous. But we place our faith in the scientific method and revelation both. There’s a word for Mr Kyffin’s manifestation in my mirror.’

  Yes, thinks Anna. It’s delusion.

  ‘It is crisis apparition. At times a phantasm visits before a death; at others after it. The veil parts for a moment, our beloved slips through to comfort and advise. Beatrice, since then I’ve come to understand the Mind. The Mind is a great miracle. But no more than, say, the electric telegraph. Do we dismiss the telegraph or underground cable? Do we say, Oh dear no, this cannot happen, our senses are deceiving us? Such-and-such a message cannot have been transmitted from New Zealand or India? At our church we receive communications from the World Unseen. Many times Mr Kyffin has visited me through table-rappings, mind-readings, automatic writing, mesmeric trances. He came on Friday last, about seven in the evening, and this is why I am here. May I pass you his message?’

  ‘Is it from Luke?’ Beatrice asks.

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘But how could he possibly speak to you, Antigone? He had no – vocabulary.’

  ‘Ah, but these messages come through mediums, dear. Otherwise we’d be at a loss to understand them. They are confided to the mediums by tutelary spirits in the Other World. The messages are at best translations. Besides, children grow up there far more rapidly than here. They’re generally taken care of by their grandparents.’

  ‘Then how do you know it was him? How do you know it’s authentic? The voices could be demons deceiving us.’

  ‘That could always be the case, Beatrice,’ Mrs Kyffin gravely acknowledges. She explains that we’re surrounded by evil angels as well as good – and the world is shifting in relation to its Creator. From what the Magnetic Church has gathered, the angels and demons are massing in vast armies ready to fight the final War. ‘We have to sift all messages carefully.’

  ‘Tell me then,’ Beatrice says. Anna sees with misgiving the hunger and determination in her sister’s face.

  ‘Luke wants you to know that he is safe and well. He says Grandmama Pentecost is looking after him. He says he swam back where he came from across the river. God made it an easy journey for him. He just gave a big yawn, closed his eyes and fell asleep. At first he didn’t realise that he’d died. He begs you not to cry, dear heart.’

  Beatrice asks, trembling, ‘But does he miss me?’

  ‘No, dear, why should he? He is here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘With us now, as we speak.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In this room.’

  ‘Let him tell us so himself. Let me see him.’

  *

  Christian would be dismayed. Probably. But Christian hasn’t been told. He’s in Ireland converting the Catholics. A job that could detain him indefinitely, Beatrice thinks cynically. What does he care anyway? Her sister has agreed to come, just for company and curiosity – and not because she believes in conjuring tricks.

  They sit in a circle, blinds and curtains closed, the fifteen senior members of the Magnetic Church of Bradford on Avon, venerable and great-bearded gentlemen and several respectable-looking ladies. Beatrice is placed between Pastor Rayne and Antigone on a comfortable sofa, a hand held in each of theirs. The whole thing is conducted as a religious service and there’s little to distinguish it from a prayer meeting. The nervous storm that all but prostrated Beatrice in the past week has waned. Once we arrive at the threshold, what’s left to fear? The two Beatrices have fought like tigers and the mother won over the sceptic.

  Shall I see you again and hear your voice?

  Nothing whatever happens. The pastor emits a gentle purling of prayer. He’s a handsome man with a silver wing of hair, softly spoken; pale blue eyes. The murmured prayer seems to go round in circles, calming one’s breathing. By and by there’s a shift: they all seem to be breathing as one organism. Between her lashes, Beatrice sees in the dim light Antigone Kyffin sitting like a sleeper propped in a chair, her head lolling forward. Antigone is vacating her fleshly house, opening it to the use of whatever spirit may wish to inhabit it. Through the closed blinds and curtains comes the dreamy song of the mistle thrush, with an echo to it. A dog barks in the distance; the clock, at first unheard, ticks louder and slower. Beatrice begins to slide. Her head tips back on the sofa; her lips slacken; her hands in those of her neighbours relax.

  ‘Gentle Saviour who dearly loved children,’ Mr Rayne continues. ‘Breathe consolation into our sister Beatrice. If it be Thy Will, bring her into communication with her beloved Luke, the soul who has gone before her.’

  Beatrice slips further down into a pool of quiet. Warmth seeps into her hands. She has a sensation of well-being. Then it’s as if her face is being blown upon.

  ‘Mama!’ A high, thin voice pipes from Antigone, whose head has fallen back in a swoon, face ashen.

  Beatrice is on her feet, hands over her mouth. ‘Luke! Is it really you?’

  Lispings. Babblings. Sighs and shifting sounds just like those Luke used to make as he was waking up but before he was completely awake. Beatrice would bend over the crib and her face would be the first he saw as he opened his eyes.

  Then a lisping voice is heard, speaking in sentences. She makes out, ‘Mama! I am well. I’m over here with Jesus and Magdalena, Mama.’

  Now Anna’s on her feet, sobbing, and she cries out, ‘Magdalena! Lore, are you there?’

  Finger on lips, Mr Rayne gestures to Anna to sit down and be silent: this message is not for her. The quiet resumes. Beatrice can hardly breathe. She refrains from looking at her sister and closes her eyes. So it’s true then: the graves are opening. The dead are coming amongst us. Mr Rayne squeezes Beatrice’s hand. There’s a scent of … something calming … lavender, lilac.

  ‘Luke – dear heart – it’s your mama – darling – ’

  No answer. Anna’s outburst has driven the messenger away.

  Mr Rayne resumes his prayer. He asks for the peace of God that passes all understanding.

  The baby on the other side begins to babble. There’s an enormous chuckle as if he were being tickled. Mrs Kyffin heaves with laughter. Beatrice dissolves in tears. Then an elderly voice quavers a lullaby and one has the feeling that the baby’s being rocked, rocked to sleep, and Beatrice rocks too.

  But now there’s another voice, adult, speaking with the suspicion of a foreign accent. Lore? It’s Lore to the life, terse, tinged with asperity.

  ‘For whom in this room is your message? Please speak slowly and distinctly.’

  ‘For. My. Sister. Is that slow and distinc
t enough for you?’

  Beatrice thinks: but Lore had no sister.

  ‘From whom is your message?’ asks Mrs Kyffin.

  ‘From a child who is here.’

  ‘What is the child’s name?’

  ‘You should know.’

  ‘Boy or girl?’

  ‘A mother’s child.’

  ‘Does the child wish to speak to its mother?’

  ‘Why would that be necessary?’

  ‘Lore!’ cries Beatrice. ‘I know it’s you! For the love of God. Have some pity.’

  Antigone begins to whistle. It’s a high-pitched whistling between her teeth like a lad blowing on a grass blade between his thumbs; uncouth, unladylike. Antigone would, in the normal way, be ashamed to make such a rude noise. She’d be physically incapable of it. Over there in the Other World someone is mocking us. Beatrice claps her hands over her ears. The shrilling wakens Antigone herself. As she comes to with a jolt, the whistling stops. Drained of energy, the medium collapses. She is revived and offered a glass of water.

  The pastor resumes his prayers. He asks the Lord for a blessing on the dear medium, peace of mind and a replenishment of her magnetic powers. He lays his hand on her head. Pastor and medium gaze into one another’s eyes; Antigone’s slowly close under the influence of his.

  And Beatrice knows.

  It’s a theatre of illusion. Luke has gone forever. He no longer exists in any world that she can know. She understands that God has ordained this separation between herself and her beloved. She bends to the knowledge. What can there be but compliance? He ordered it at the beginning of time, before the Spirit moved on the face of the waters to create the world. He not only foresaw but ordained the arduous birth and painless death of Luke Ritter one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one years after the birth of Christ. He did this for reasons of his own, inscrutable and terrible and, in our human terms, arbitrary. Mr Spurgeon is right and Christian Ritter is wrong. There’s no scaling God’s high wall. It’s just as her father told Beatrice. With our spectacles and telescopes, and standing on a mountain of books, we cannot even see to the top. All we can do is to kneel here in the dust and wait. Beatrice rises, puts on her gloves, picks up her bag and, without a word, leaves.